Stay With Me
by ebonyandunicorn
Summary: Q's voice in his earpiece is the last thing James Bond hears.


A high-pitched, wailing klaxon split the silence and Q almost spat out his tea. Sitting at his desk, overseeing a mission that had until just now been going perfectly, the quartermaster yanked out his earpiece on reflex when the alarm began to shriek through it, threatening to blow out his eardrum. A second later he'd replaced it, disregarding the noise, and was shouting commands to Bond. "007, you just tripped some kind of pressure plate! Every single person in that facility has been alerted to your presence. You need to get out of there now!"

The quartermaster watched through the cameras he'd rerouted as a dozen security staff members spilled out into the corridors. They were swarming Bond's location, indicated by the blip on the map from the tracker MI6 had installed. Bond himself was eerily silent, making none of the wisecracks that Q had come to expect whenever all hell had broken loose and Bond had to pull some insane feat to get himself out alive. "007, did you hear me?" Q yelled. "In about six seconds, you're going to be overrun. Get out!"

"I heard you, Q," Bond replied softly. On the grainy image from the camera that was trained on his location, Q watched him at last begin to run, but something was wrong. Instead of his usual fluid, swift stride, the agent was almost hobbling down the corridor. He was injured.

Six seconds later, the soldiers arrived.

Q flinched again as the sound of the shrieking klaxon was swallowed by a hail of gunfire. It was impossible to see what was happening on the camera feed besides bullets flying everywhere. He thought Bond had reached the end of the corridor and taken cover in the next room, but for too many long, tense moments, he couldn't be sure. After several seconds the gunfire stopped, to reveal an empty corridor that the men charged up. When they flung the door open, the man that stepped through first promptly fell with a bullet through his temple. Q let out a quiet sigh of relief; Bond was safe behind cover and could pick them off one by one.

Four soldiers fell before the rest managed to make it through the door. Watching through the camera in the room in which Bond was sheltering, Q saw three more drop as they took aim at a stack of crates in the corner of the room. Bullets shredded through the crates, but he saw a shadow dive out from behind them and roll, shooting as he went; the eighth and ninth men went down. The three that remained screamed obscenities as Bond ducked through another door. They followed, but were felled as quickly as their fellow soldiers. Q felt a fierce surge of pride in his heart. Nobody but Bond could have made such short work of a dozen men.

"Nice work, 007," he said with a smile. "Now get out of there before this gets any messier."

"Doing my best," was the gasped reply.

Immediately Q's brows knitted together in concern. "007, are you all right?"

"Not... exactly." Even on the grainy, low-resolution image presented by the camera, Q could see the pain that was twisting Bond's face. The agent had a hand pressed to his stomach and spoke through gritted teeth. "May've... let one of 'em get a little close."

"What do you mean?" Q asked, momentarily confused. A second later understanding hit, along with a wave of nausea that blurred his vision for a moment. "Oh, _shit_," he gasped. "Do you need evac? I'm sending in a team." Q's fingers flew over the keyboard, typing out the command before Bond could reply. The alarm was still wailing, obscuring the agent's next words. Q pressed his palm against his ear, pushing the earpiece in as far as it would go. "I can't hear you, 007. Speak up!"

For a few moments there was nothing but the sound of hoarse breathing and a klaxon to keep Q's dread company. In all the months they had been working together, he had never seen Bond falter like this. He watched the agent slide slowly down the wall into a sitting position, unable to stay on his feet any longer. "Old wound," he muttered. "Stumbled. Wouldn't have tripped the plate otherwise."

"The one in your leg? Damn you, 007. I told you to take a week off when it started bothering you again, but did you listen to me? No." Q's hands curled briefly into fists before he resumed his fierce typing, calling up the security protocols to cut Bond off from the rest of the facility and keep him safe until the evac team arrived. The wailing klaxon cut out at long last. "Finally," he muttered. "All right. The team's on its way to patch you up and get you out. Just... just sit tight until they get there, okay?"

He heard a strangled sound that he recognised as an attempt at a laugh. "Don't think I'll be doing too much else, Q."

"Right. Right." The quartermaster's gaze flitted erratically over the screen in front of him, scanning the camera feeds to make sure nobody else got near Bond, watching the agent's vitals being measured by the tracker under his skin. Eventually his eyes settled on the feed from the camera that was trained on Bond, his throat closing when he saw the way the agent's head was drooping and the blood that was gradually pooling around him on the floor. "Hey, 007, don't fall asleep on me. Keep your head up. Are you listening? Bond! Keep your head up!"

Bond sucked in a shallow breath. "No names, Q. Don't know who could be listening."

"Balls to that," Q said shortly. "That's not what's important here. What's important is that you stay awake."

"Some Soviet asshole just shot me four times in the stomach," Bond breathed. "If I want to sleep, I will fucking sleep."

"No, you won't!" Q slammed his fist on the table, launching himself to his feet. Never before had he felt so useless, stuck behind a desk and a computer screen while James Bond was hundreds of miles away, bleeding out on the floor. "Bond! Stay with me here. Our people are on their way. You can sleep when you've let them patch you up."

There was a silence on the other end that threatened to stop Q's heart.

"_Bond!_"

"Yeah...?"

"Don't go quiet like that," Q whispered. "You scared the shit out of me."

Bond's breath was rasping in his throat. "Sorry."

"It's okay."

"Hey... Q?" Bond muttered.

"Yeah?"

"I'm dying."

A soft, slow beeping had picked up. Bond's blood pressure, detected by the tracker, was dangerously low. The sound filled Q's consciousness and made it impossible for him to think. His mind was blank. Q's mind never went blank. His off-the-charts IQ was unable to process such a simple statement. He could barely remember the meaning of the words.

"No you're not," he managed to say, gripping the edge of the table. "You're not. I promise. I won't let you. You're not going to die."

"You're babbling."

"I do that when I'm nervous!" Q snapped. "Shut up, Bond!"

Impossibly, he could see the man's smile. "You keep using my name. Wouldn't do that if I wasn't dying."

"Maybe I would," Q argued. "You don't know that."

"I can guess. You never..." Bond broke off to cough, each hacking wheeze tearing a hole in Q's heart. "...never told me yours."

"It's Miles," Q said instantly, desperate to keep Bond's attention, to keep him awake. He was breaching half a hundred security laws, but he didn't care. The beeping from the tracker was getting louder and faster, more urgent. "Miles Gray. Don't tell M I told you, though. He'd be all kinds of cross with me."

"Hm." Bond nodded slowly. "Miles. I like it. It suits you."

"Thanks."

"_Definitely_ wouldn't have told me unless I was dying."

Q closed his eyes. "Christ, Bond. Stop saying that."

"Because it's true?" Bond asked quietly. "Don't worry, Q. I'm not afraid to die." _I'm afraid for you to die_, Q thought hopelessly. "Besides, not like you'll miss me, right?"

"Of course I'll miss you, you stupid arrogant hopeless _field_ agent," Q hissed. "Please, God, Bond, don't die. Stay with me." His eyes were glued to the screen, watching the pool of blood grow wider and deeper and hopeless.

"Can't really help it, can I? Promise, though... I didn't do it on purpose. Didn't... want you to have to see this. But, hey... Q." Somehow Bond found the strength to raise his head and stare into the camera, the closest he could get to meeting Q's gaze. "You were... a good quartermaster. Sorry I made fun of you so much. Wasn't because of your age... Was because of how clever you were."

Bond's already fuzzy image was blurring further; Q wiped a hand furiously over his eyes to clear them of tears. "Don't worry about it," he answered thickly, shaking his head. "Seriously. It's fine. Don't be sorry. You have nothing to be sorry for."

"Sorry I'm dying," Bond whispered, his head falling back to lean against the wall. "Sorry I'm leaving... you..."

The beeping became a squeal. An urgent warning popped up on the screen as the tracker failed to recognise a pulse; Q pressed his fingers against his earpiece and began to scream into it: "Bond. Bond! Stay with me! Jesus Christ, no... James! _James!_" He watched on the screen as the medical team at last burst into the room where Bond was slumped against the wall, forming a circle around his body while one of them went forward and pressed his fingers against the artery in his neck. When the man shook his head, Q felt the world spin. Suddenly he was on the floor, shaking, sobbing, one hand still cupping the earpiece as he fought to get the words out. "Oh God, no. James," he wept. "Come back. Come back."


End file.
